


Kiss and Tallahassee

by Whoareyou0000



Category: Zombieland (2009)
Genre: Angst, Assault, Candy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 07:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21490510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whoareyou0000/pseuds/Whoareyou0000
Summary: Tallahassee takes Columbus to a video rental store and teaches him about the importance of kissing and telling. Columbus/Tallahassee pre-slash.
Relationships: Columbus/Tallahassee (Zombieland)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 146





	Kiss and Tallahassee

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Zombieland, Never Been Kissed, Drew Barrymore, or any of the candy brands listed in this story. 
> 
> Author’s Note: I really appreciate all of the kudos and comments I’ve received on my other stories! I’m so glad to see that the pairing and genre is still going strong. Anyway, this one takes place during the first movie in an AU where the boys have never met Wichita or Little Rock. Rated R for violence and occasional language. Enjoy!

I jolted forward suddenly, launching out of a very pleasant dream involving a family-sized bag of Funyuns and into the tightening strap cradling my torso. Then I slammed back into the cushioned seat, eyes wide open and taking in the Hummer’s still-blurry dashboard. 

I blinked and dug the seatbelt out of my chest. Thank fuck for Rule #3. A sudden coughing fit took over and I inhaled the stale scent of two men sharing a car for over five uninterrupted hours in an apocalyptic hellscape with little running water. 

Tallahassee patted my back twice in that man-hug way that doesn’t hurt. 

“Wakey Wakey, movies and candy.” 

I shot him my best side-eye and huffed my general disapproval.

“Ease into a stop, remember? Rule number 46?” Rubbing my sleep-encrusted eyes, I looked up at the old brick building staring back at us. “Where are we?”

His sinister chuckle answered me. I rolled my eyes and followed his mischievous stare all the way up to a red and blue neon sign almost as big as the building itself. A dotted arrow curved around to point at the glass front door of the dark and seemingly deserted retail outlet. I read the sign out loud, still trying to make sense of it all in my post-sleep stupor. 

“Frank’s Family Video & Emporium.”

All of the little bulbs had burnt out except for two unfortunate letters that clued me in to exactly why Tallahassee picked this particular spot to rest for the night. 

F and U.

“Ah, I see.” I met his narrowed blue eyes and shook my head. “That…that’s hilarious. Do, do you think you’ll grow out of puberty soon or…” 

He lightly backhanded my chest and cackled. 

“I’ll still get there before you, Spitfuck.” He popped the door handle and jumped out, immediately scouring the backseat for his weapons. “Come on, I bet there’s something sweet in there to eat.” 

Per usual, I scanned the Oregon backroad carefully before exiting. I found nothing but tall pines, green foliage, and a dirt road that turned off at a massive billboard covered in moldy chipping paint. The dull red letters proclaimed. 

WOOD CHIPS BY THE TON!

I pictured those little wooden spindles and cringed a little. I imagined their coarse texture and needle-like sharpness against my skin, leaving scratches and blood and general discomfort and splinters…so many splinters. Suddenly, I felt the need for a deep breath. 

I shook off the unpleasant sensation and cleared my lungs before I joined Tallahassee outside. Then I carefully loaded our overnight gear onto my shoulders. We worked in silence until I broke it with an anxiety-laced observation.

“I thought we agreed to drive southeast.” 

He held a large shovel up for inspection and answered in its direction.

“It’s a big country, kid. It’s gonna take a couple days to pass through.” 

“I don’t like it here.” I looked back at the billboard and squeezed my double barrel tighter. “It feels like de ja vu, the worst kind.” 

Tallahassee slammed the back door, satisfied with an axe the size of his head and a few guns in his belts. 

“You know there’s a reason the zombies took the Eiffel Tower first, right? There’s nothing about the French that’s scary, especially de ja vu.” He emphasized those last words with added disgust. I shrugged and followed him to the front door, where all seemed surprisingly undisturbed. 

“You think Frank’s still on the clock?” 

He smirked at my question. 

“Ding Ding. Come here, Franky boy!”

Florida pushed on the glass door with the handle-side of the axe. It slowly creaked open with the abrupt tingle of a bell. We waited in heavy silence until the pitter patter of hungry zombie feet worked its way closer to the front entrance. Tallahassee gestured for me to stand back, an order I had no trouble following, and held the axe at shoulder level. A short bald robust monster appeared with his nametag still prominently displayed on the breast of his denim button down. The axe reflected the setting sun as it penetrated his throat and came out the other side.

Frank’s head flew in Tallahassee’s direction and his body stumbled towards mine. I fired on reflex, hitting the headless video store clerk in the torso and pushing him back in the opposite direction. He landed at Florida’s boots in a puddle of blood, his head about ten feet the left. 

We observed a moment of silence before Tallahassee hooted.

“Now that’s zombie kill of the week!” 

I couldn’t argue with that one. 

Florida entered first and I trailed behind, closing and locking the door behind us. I always made sure to leave a way out, it was a rule. This time, though, it felt safer inside than out. I took one last look down that road, searching for bloodshot eyes and flesh encrusted teeth, before stepping into a maze of VHS tapes and DVDs. I wandered through two long dark aisles of thrillers and documentaries before finding my partner staring at a pink plastic-covered VHS. When he spoke, his face held a look of serious speculation and confusion.

“Huh. I didn’t know Drew Barrymore did porn.” 

I couldn’t suppress a laugh. He shot me with a familiar scowl. 

“Somethan funny?”

I took the movie from him and studied it in the emergency lighting. The actress’ smiling face beamed across the cover beneath the title captured in bold pink letters.

“This is, uh, Never Been Kissed. It’s a romantic comedy. Pretty funny actually, see Drew Barrymore is this reporter who hasn’t kissed anyone before, and she goes undercover…” 

He held his hand up with a neutral glance in my direction.

“Is this gonna take a while? Because I’m starving and there’s candy in here calling my name.” 

I shoved the tape into my hoodie pocket with a nod.

“Uh, yea. I could use some dinner with my theater.” 

Tallahassee led us to the checkout area, his nose for sugar not to be questioned. He ducked behind the counter and pulled out a box filled with candy, popcorn, and other treats and then returned to the floor for another. I aimlessly pushed some buttons on the cash register and settled into the silence, finally beginning to feel safe in my surroundings. That’s when Tallahassee spoke again. 

“So your first kiss, what was that like?” 

The register dinged. The drawer shot open and I jumped, nearly tripping over Tallahassee’s extended leg. Plastic crinkled underneath the counter and he rose, lifting a second empty box up onto the flat surface. “Well, Casanova?”

“You first,” I countered. He laughed.

“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” 

I bit my lip, holding back a smile that had been showing up far too often in the older man’s presence. 

“Right, like, with genitalia. How can I argue with that grade school logic?” He snorted. “Okay, um, Natalie. We met on a park bench outside of our high school. We were, uh, 16. She liked Star Wars and so did I. It didn’t last long, though. She loved the prequel too much. Fucking Ewan McGregor.” 

He barely looked up from his box of sugar. The silence stretched as he pulled a Mounds bar from the carnage and threw it over his shoulder in disgust. 

“That it?” 

I read somewhere that having a casual demeanor made liars more convincing, so I boosted myself up on the countertop and leaned back against the cash register while I said my next line. 

“Yea, uh, yes. That’s all.” 

“Alright then. I guess it’s my turn to show and tell, huh?” He dropped some Milk Duds and Red Vines into the empty box. “Well, today is your lucky day kid because I got two scintillating first kiss stories for ya.” 

Tallahassee met my eyes with a devilish grin. My cheeks warmed.

“Wow, that’s…that’s very generous of you.” 

“I accept offerings in the form of whiskey and guns if you wanna thank me later.” He closed the first box and dropped it to the floor, replaced it with another, and snickered. “Story number one: sweet sweet Rosario. She had these big brown eyes and soft hair. We met on a seventh-grade field trip to the Alamo and made out behind the Cenotaph for an hour. It was one and done but man, what a memory.” 

I nodded. “That’s one way to remember the Alamo.” 

“Indeed.” He held a Butterfinger in front of his eyes with intense admiration. “Story number two, well that’s more of a real first kiss if you ask me. I was fifteen. His name was Gary Franklin.” 

Suddenly, Florida had my full attention. 

“We met at a bowling alley and got to liking each other real quick. I made the first move behind our high school gymnasium. We got real into it, as you do, until our gym teacher, Mr. Wallace, came around. He decided he was gonna turn us straight by making us each do 50 pull-ups.” 

“Shit.” The word escaped my mouth before I could stop it.

“Yea.” He scraped the bottom of the box, narrowing down his search. “Of course, I knocked them out in no time because I’m me.” 

I nodded. “Well sure, naturally.” 

“But Gary was a bit of a scrawny kid, my type I guess, and he couldn’t cut it. Wallace wouldn’t let him go, though, so I had to take matters into my own hands.” 

I balanced on the edge of the counter, my heart racing to this unexpected southern thriller. 

“You…you punched him?”

“Violence ain’t always the answer.” He calmly picked through the remainder of the snacks. “Sometimes, it’s blackmail. Told him if he didn’t let us both go, I’d tell the whole school it was him who turned us gay. Small town in the south…a lie like that woulda ruined him for life.” 

I sighed, relief flooding through me for a guy I didn’t even know. “Wow. Would you really have gone through with it, though?”

Florida grinned up at me from his crouched position over the counter. “Of course I would’ve, it worked. He never looked twice at us again. Sometimes the good guys do win.” 

I felt warm inside, like a kid when Bugs Bunny escapes from Elmer Fudd’s double barrel at the end of the cartoon. 

“What…what happened to Gary?” 

Tallahassee shrugged. “We disagreed on the ethics of my methods. Last I heard he moved to San Francisco. Probably safer there…until the zombies.” 

I nodded and chewed on my hoodie string. Silence expanded again, as Tallahassee built a house out of Junior Mints and Snow Caps. He was nearly two stories high before he broke the calm with a single word.

“So?”

I raised my eyebrows. “So…what?” 

“Tell me about your real first kiss. Not your cover story.” 

The hoodie string fell from my lips. We locked eyes, his oddly serious. 

“Come on, kid. It’s okay. I told you mine.” 

My stomach knotted. I thought I might vomit right there, but his persistent blue eyes and surprisingly gentle nudging gave me the courage to respond. 

“It’s kind of depressing, actually. I’m definitely more of the Gary in my version.” 

“That’s alright.” Pushing his candy house over the edge, he circled the counter and reached underneath into the snack display. “Like I said, the Gary’s are my type.” 

I took a deep breath and felt the blood drain from my face. I’d never said these words out loud before and figured I never would, what with the zombies taking priority over social workers and HMO. But there, in Frank’s video store, I found myself watching an older Southern man sniff Bubble Tape like a fucking magic marker and thinking that it couldn’t be all that bad to tell someone. 

To tell him. 

First, I wrapped my hands in my sleeves and flipped the hood on top of my head. Then, I just started at the beginning.

“When I was thirteen, I had this friend named Josh. We hung out together every day, doing stupid kid stuff I guess, and I just started…liking him as more than a friend. So, one day, we were at the park and I just kissed him. He kissed me back, at first, and for like five seconds I thought it was all going to work out, you know? Then, he put his hands on my chest and pushed me really hard and I fell.” 

Tallahassee dropped the now six-inch-long pink gum strip and raised a set of darker eyes to me. I focused my stare on my hands, it was the only way I could keep talking. 

“You remember those wood chips, right? The ones that were supposed to give kids a softer landing when they fell but they were actually sharp and pointy and…anyway…I started apologizing right away and I tried to get up, and then Josh kicked me in the chin. Everything went blurry and I tried to catch my breath and then…he called some of the other kids over. He told them I was a…you know the word…and they started kicking me everywhere. So, I rolled onto my stomach, just trying to protect myself and that’s when someone stepped on my head and pushed my face into the ground.” 

Tallahassee approached me cautiously, like I was a bomb about to explode. He stopped about a foot away and just hovered. I could see his boots from where my eyes stayed focused, still wet with Frank’s blood. 

“I inhaled and those fucking woodchips…I started choking on them. I couldn’t lift my head because of some kid’s fucking Doc Martin and every time I tried to breath, there were more splinters instead of air. It felt like someone was sticking razor wire down my throat and into my lungs. I was too weak to fight back. I thought I was going to die.” 

I exhaled, the confession untying an old heavy knot in my stomach. 

“I haven’t been able to kiss a man since then. Not because I don’t want to. I really really want to…especially since I met you.” I vaguely gestured in his direction. “I’m just so fucking scared.”

I was vaguely aware of tears warming my freezing-cold cheeks and a body now pressed to the counter directly next to me. A hand slowly covered my sleeves and found my fingers through them. I chanced a look up at the man holding my hands still and saw something I hadn’t seen since the night he told me about Buck.

Carefully concealed tears.

“You didn’t die, kid. You made it, through a god damned zombie apocalypse. You made it a hell of a lot farther than any of those fucking homophobes did. You and Gary are the strong ones you know, not me, because you take that crap and you still love and trust people. You got in my truck on that highway and treated me with kindness I hadn’t met in years. You never give up on the greater good and that annoys the hell out of me some days, kid, but it also makes me want to kiss you silly.” 

One of his hands left mine and found my cheek, gently brushing the hood from my head. 

“But I won’t. You need to make the first move when you’re ready and on that day I’m gonna teach you that real love don’t hurt. That no human piece of shit is ever gonna hurt you on my watch. One good thing about the end of the world, Columbus, most of the bigots are zombie food and the ones that aren’t…well that’s where I get to have my fun.”

His squeezed my shoulder, nodded, and retrieved his massive box of candy. 

“Now come on, I saw a vending machine in the back and we still have to find out if Drew Barrymore ever kisses anyone.” 

I lowered my feet to the floor and slowly followed my partner through an ‘employees only’ entrance.

Spoiler alert- she does and so did I.


End file.
